4 ms·
A computer accomplishes tasks by coordinating many subsystems. Not everything is done in the CPU, and the brain is similar. The central unit can make requests o
by orev 4y ago
A computer accomplishes tasks by coordinating many subsystems. Not everything is done in the CPU, and the brain is similar. The central unit can make requests of other components (e.g. storage controller), and they go off and do it while the central unit does something else. Only the real heavy thinking/processing happens in the CPU, and that’s always what discussions about human multitasking are talking about. Brains and computer systems work in similar ways.
- sudosysgen 4y agoEven the CPU itself has different processing units which it uses to delegate such tasks and achieve parallelism for tasks which don't have data dependencies
- interroboink 4y ago> Only the real heavy thinking/processing happens in the CPU... > Brains and computer systems work in similar ways. I think that this characterization is pretty simplistic. Perhaps it's useful as a model from time to time, but does not capture the massively complex reality, full of unknowns and poorly understood by science to this day. Where is this "CPU" in the brain, of which you speak? I suppose the pre-frontal cortex? That zone is generally associated with orchestration/planning, that you mention. But to say that those functions constitute "the real heavy thinking" is a bit of a reach, I think. It would be like saying the manager does the all the hard work (: I'm no neuroscientist, but anecdotally, a good portion of my important mental results come from an unknown place — maybe bubbling to the forefront of consciousness when I'm sitting on the toilet, or in a dream. Not when my "CPU is spinning", so to speak. YMMV.